Week 28 : Save the Cat

Wow week 28, that means I have been at this for seven months. What do I have for you this week you ask?

Well, I decided to pickup a book on screen writing, don't worry I haven't given up on my dream to make games only to decide to move to LA and be the next big screen writer.

I did however spent the weekend watching some classic movies and began dabbling with a movie idea myself. Yes, I did attempt to start writing a script. I quickly came to the realization I don't have a clue on how to write a movie. Sure I have watched plenty, and read plenty of plays in my youth, but I never really attempted to write one. Heck 110 pages should be easy to bust out, boy was I wrong.

So I found a book 'Save the Cat', it is a very good read, nice and light. Most importantly it gives you the right questions to ask. What is the one line that describes the whole story? Who is this story about? How is he/she growing through the story? What is the demographic? What is the time frame?

These are all great questions that help you refine your idea. Although I am not planning on writing the next big budget movie I do think these questions help in game development. At Plastic Games we have been working on a game for a while. The game play is solid and fun but the story. . . the story isn't fleshed out. So why not use the basis for solid story telling, the movies, also for game development? It seems like the natural thing to do.

As we know, Tell Tale Games is all about story. Story drives the game. I would bet most of the story writers at Tell Tale have written scripts and plays themselves. It is not only good to learn how to write better for my personal knowledge, there is a language to script writing. It is better to become familiar that language now than to have a blank look at my face when I am asked about 'log lines' and 'act breaks'.

I actually have a book on writing for animation, that one will be read next, and perhaps a book on writing for comics. I have looked into books focused on writing for games, but I am hesitant to read them. The authors have plenty of games in their pocket but many of their credits are sports game related. I don't ever recall be captivated by the plot line in Fifa or Madden. Let's face it, good story writing is few and far between. Perhaps it is a result of the infancy of games or maybe there isn't a target audience to justify publishers creating such a niche book.

In any case a good student can take the fundamental solutions from one subject and reapply them to new problems. That is what knowledge is all about.

See you in thirteen weeks